Lying about delegation

This paper reports results from a three-player variant of the ultimatum game in which the Proposer can delegate to a third party his decision regarding how to share his endowment with a Responder with a standard veto right. However, the Responder cannot verify whether the delegation is effective or the third party merely plays a ``scapegoat'' role, while the decision is made by the Proposer himself. In this uncertain attribution setting, the Proposer can send an unverifiable message declaring his delegation strategy. One possible strategy is ``false delegation'', in which the Proposer makes the decision but claims to have'' delegated it. In our sample, the recourse to false delegation is significant, and a significant number of potential Delegates accept serving in the scapegoat role. However, there are many honest Proposers, and 20% of all Delegates will refuse to be the accomplices of a dishonest Proposer. Responders tend to more readily accept poor offers in a setup that permits lying about delegation; the acceptance rate of the poor offer is the highest when Delegates can refuse the scapegoat role. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.